Harry Weidner: 0:04

All right. Welcome back to our tangled minds.

Jack Weidner: 0:09

Welcome to our tangled minds.

Harry Weidner: 0:11

I'm Harry Weidner.

Jack Weidner: 0:12

I'm Jack Bagnato season

Harry Weidner: 0:14

two, episode two, I hope you liked the brand new launch of season one. I hope everyone tuned in and said, Wow, this sounds fun again. And we'll try to keep it rolling throughout season two, I'm having fun with it. If you haven't voted with it,

Jack Weidner: 0:30

I am I actually wanted to see if you wanted to implement a new podcast feature, where we start by talking about something we are reading right now.

Harry Weidner: 0:40

Yeah, I would love to. But before we do that, we had a fan mail listener mail listener reaching out to us, oh, I don't know about this. On Buzzsprout, which is the podcast hosting site, the Jack and I use, they say intellectual humility. It's something we should all strive for our nation would be so much better for it. And I just wanted to thank you for reaching out, that really meant a lot. To me.

Jack Weidner: 1:06

The engagement is a while to me right now here for the first time. Yeah, I

Harry Weidner: 1:09

didn't tell Jack about this. The engagement is great. I really appreciate that. It's a, it's a fun way to hear what you guys are thinking about what we're thinking about. So keep it coming. Keep the fan mail rollin. You can shoot us a text. It's the first line in the description, oftentimes on Spotify and Buzzsprout. And you can still email us at our tangled. minds@gmail.com.

Jack Weidner: 1:33

Yeah. Okay, cool. Nice. Who set up? Do you know?

Harry Weidner: 1:37

I don't know. It doesn't cheer. Oh, fun. Yeah. But fun. No, awesome. So thank you very much, again, for reaching out. Thank you. To those of you who haven't yet reached out, please reach out if you have thoughts. And to

Jack Weidner: 1:51

those of you who have not just that person, but bless for the previous episodes as well. Thank you. I read them. And I forward them to Harry.

Harry Weidner: 2:00

We get it all. We appreciate your interactions with us. And now on to Jack's new segment that he wanted to bring up

Jack Weidner: 2:09

Jack's book No book. Doesn't have to be a book though. can be anything? I don't know. I just came up with that off.

Harry Weidner: 2:14

Jack's book nook.

Jack Weidner: 2:15

Okay. What are you reading right now, Harry? Oh, God, this is really turning into a podcast. Yeah. Well,

Harry Weidner: 2:20

I'm honestly two white men

Jack Weidner: 2:23

who are talking about what they're reading in there. Yeah, it's in the world. That's what the world's missing right now.

Harry Weidner: 2:27

I still haven't finished within reason I did. That was something that I put on pause for a long time. And I still haven't finished the Jack Kerouac book on the road restarted. I started I started it in the airport today, next day that you gave it to me. And I just, unfortunately, I'm packing up my room. So I packed it away. So it's going to wait until I get to Denver for me to reopen dacha, but you should

Jack Weidner: 2:56

actually not pack it and read it on your way to Denver, I would actually be a very,

Harry Weidner: 3:03

unfortunately, the very bottom of

Jack Weidner: 3:07

a box. That seems like a huge problem, and

Harry Weidner: 3:10

I will not be able to get it. But I am finishing within reason by Sandra glia, the Dean of the School of Public Health. It's about public health. It's about about Yes, it's about liberalism, and not the kind of liberalism that's very heated right now. But

Jack Weidner: 3:30

liberalism with a lowercase owl by definition, liberalism.

Harry Weidner: 3:36

And coming coming from the perspective of public 100, Capitol Hill, I think it would be business

Jack Weidner: 3:44

on freedom. It doesn't matter what it is. We're going to look it up. Freedom, emphasis on freedom, liberalism.

Harry Weidner: 3:50

So it's about public health's failures throughout COVID. And how we have sort of shifted public health to illiberalism, where it's been more about mandates and all of these things that are reducing public's trust in the system.

Jack Weidner: 4:15

I'm already i Okay, wait, I have a question. Answer. So we talk we spoke last episode about the importance of vaccine mandates. What's your take? I mean, that's in direct opposition to that mindset, right? Well,

Harry Weidner: 4:32

it is. But the whole point of the book goes back to education, and proper education, hopefully, proper public health education would lead people to understand that the risks of vaccination is so small, and the benefits of vaccination are so great that they would make the proper choice. It's

Jack Weidner: 4:53

so interesting to me that how foundational of principle education is in any kind of liberalism. Because liberalism requires and an educated populace to work, which is fascinating to me. Literally like a pop like, oh, gosh, that's

Harry Weidner: 5:14

so

Jack Weidner: 5:15

interesting. It's huge. It's so idealistic, for, for people to say, education is the thing that is going to get us out of this. Because I think like that requires a generational shift, no generations, shift I generational multi generational shift in the way we interact with institutions. It's like, how do we get them to trust institutions, it's to understand why those institutions are there and to understand how they function. And we, in this country, at least have such an inherent distrust of institution, we were founded on the distrust of institutions. That is literally how our democracy came to be. It was a bunch of people who didn't trust institutions, or didn't like that they weren't the head institution. And that is part of the fabric of our country. And that is so fascinating. And it's got to be so frustrating for those who are so charismatic, who like your Dean, who is so sad, like he would I'm sure he would advocate to just give everyone an education where they can understand this and that outreach. And it's so yeah, be so hard. That's so interesting.

Harry Weidner: 6:29

The another sort of key point of the book, is that we need to fall back on the science and fall back on the numbers and be critical on arguments of both sides.

Jack Weidner: 6:45

And yeah, it liberalism requires that middle ground, it

Harry Weidner: 6:48

requires a lack of polarization.

Jack Weidner: 6:52

Okay, so

Harry Weidner: 6:55

I don't want to I don't want to say it's, I don't want to say it requires middle ground. But it requires your right to be you can still be on the very far end of the spectrum. Yes, requires you to understand the other side. And so I don't want to call that middle ground. You know what I mean, though,

Jack Weidner: 7:13

that's an interesting point. Because I have been really annoyed with this idea of people saying like, Oh, well, I'm an independent, as if that makes you better for like, as if, and when I don't think that's what they're saying. Like, there's people who say like, I'm independent, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're a in the middle B, that you're truly independent. Or see that you're actually like, like you could be removed from the system, like that idea of independent that idea of like, being in the middle of two issues, I think is false. And I think that we like kind of, like glorify that as like, not taking aside like being intellectuals to be in the middle. But it's not like that's your right, this. I'm glad you call back. Yeah, you're

Harry Weidner: 7:57

very entitled to your opinion, but your opinion has to be informed by ideas from the other side.

Jack Weidner: 8:07

Yeah.

Harry Weidner: 8:08

So that's, that's what I'm reading. What are you reading? I'm interested, I'm always interested to hear what you're reading.

Jack Weidner: 8:13

I'm reading Brooklyn, by I am going to butcher his name, because it's super Irish. And it would be like me trying to say, Sure, sure, sir. Sharon. And without like, understanding how she says her name. It's like comb. Tobin. I don't know. Okay, it the movie came out sorcerer running was in the movie. And basically, it is a about an Irish girl after World War Two is an immigrant to America. And she settles in Brooklyn. And it is a love story. But it's also an immigrant story. It's also an American story. And it's also a story. Yeah, it's just it's really interesting. I'm reading it now, because it's one of my favorite movies. And I the sequel just came out. It's called Long Island. And before I read Long Island, because I'm not going to wait for them to make a movie of this book that just came out. I'm going to read Brooklyn, and then I'm gonna read Long Island. I'm really excited. I love these characters, eats he has a very distinct writing style. That is apparently very Irish. And I don't have a lot of experience with that. And what's fun for me is I've spent a lot of time reading Italian immigrant narratives and Italian immigrant stories and kind of trying to understand that sense of not only like immigrant experience, but also just what Italian New York was like. And this is very much an Irish side of that where they're speaking about a time she falls in love with an Italian, Italian man was you she gets into a relationship with an Italian man. Okay, and there's a lot of cultural shock there about her coming into an Italian family and the way she sees the world Like there's, there's kind of I, I'm very curious, she's very alone, she's very isolated, which I think is not an Italian. That's not like a trademark of Thai and experience it to be like Italians came in, they very much wanted to like recreate Italy. And the Irish kind of like they came Ireland, there were a lot of Irish. But the way she the way he writes for her, it's she's very much alone. She's very much without the feeling of community. And she's very much of masking her feelings of being sad and in pain. And she's not talking about it. She's she's, she, there's a there was a paragraph that I read yesterday, where she was proud about how she masked her true intentions. And she was somewhat to a priest who was caring for her. Oh, it was so interesting, she said. And I said it in a way like my mother would, that wouldn't allow him to know if I was truly grateful or not this level of what I think of as stereotypically Irish where you're like, I'm not going to feel anything, I'm going to be outwardly polite. The key, there's this underlying dialogue, and I'm excited to get because the way she talks she speaks about the Italians is very different. They're they're approaching her, they're a little bit more boisterous. I'm just, I'm excited to get through the story. And I love his writing. And it's, it's fascinating. So

Harry Weidner: 11:38

when you're reading a book like that, what does that teach you about yourself? Or does that teach you about? Does I mean, obviously gives you perspective, but are you reading for enjoyment? Are you reading it to learn something or a little bit of both?

Jack Weidner: 11:54

A little bit of both. Um, this is the first book that I picked up purely for enjoyment. And a while, I've been reading a lot of nonfiction, and a lot of just kind of like, books where I want to learn or I want to get this viewpoint. And this is just something that, like, I'm so fascinated by immigrant narratives, and New York City and Brooklyn, that this is just happens to scratch every edge. But I'm like reading it, and I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about different things. So it's kind of like it's helping me to think about different things, see different perspectives, understand what you know, from this single, like, understand this woman's experience from her perspective. And also, I'm just enjoying the heck out of it. Because it's like Brooklyn, they're cheering for the Dodgers. She's working in a notable department store. Cool. Yeah. She's going down Atlantic Avenue. Very fun. Nice. Yeah, no, it's it's great. And I just I am yeah, I'm always so cute. Because I always think about, like, our family that came over is that you know, and how different that experience was. They also came over at a different time. Right, so yeah, cool. What

Harry Weidner: 13:13

a fun little segment a lot more fun. Great. What is it? What did we call it? Book? No, no.

Jack Weidner: 13:18

Next book, Nick.

Harry Weidner: 13:19

Jack's book No duck guy, right. Welcome to the book, Nook. Should we come to the book? I like it. Should we leave the book snug?

Jack Weidner: 13:29

Yeah, let's leave. Let's get out of the book. Let's let's go into the wider world. Let's step out of the nuk.

Harry Weidner: 13:33

So this week, Jack called me one day. And you were in a little bit of a rush in a panic. And I'll have you explained I

Jack Weidner: 13:43

didn't have it wasn't a panic. I was out of breath. I had seven minutes to talk to you before a meeting. Okay, that's why I wasn't out of breath. I was trying to get through all my thoughts before I had to go into this meeting that wasn't about this that. So

Harry Weidner: 14:00

I'm going to make you explain the backstory more. But you called me and you brought up bias. And I thought it was interesting because we both have, I mean, obviously a similar definition of bias. But I look at bias very differently than the way that you look at bias and right into it. But I come in, come at it from an epidemiology perspective. And you come at come at it from more of a like, traditional and psychological bias perspective. And we'll we'll dissect it and go into it and talk about the different kinds of biases maybe not specifically but effects. I know that bias and how it affects our view on the world.

Jack Weidner: 14:44

Okay. Um, so I was watching a I was actually watching. The Khan Academy has a series on AI for educators. And I was just interested in what it would be so was watching it before a meeting because everyone's talking about AI and the workforce. And, and I was just, you know, I, I don't know if anyone be surprised when I encounter something that I don't understand that my first reaction is to try to watch as many videos and read as much about it as I can to understand it. And the first section was just about what is AI blah, blah, blah. And they're kind of like, going into all of these terms where they're talking about, like how we think, how do we know something? How do we know something to be correct? How do we learn? And for a long time, I've always thought like, Oh, these are just, you know, these are fundamental philosophy questions, like you were doing, I forgot what the actual philosophical and I knew it, and I remembered it before this is there is a there's a branch of philosophy that is about the study of knowing and the study of knowledge. It's like pista, Mala G, I think, check me on that. Look that up while I keep talking,

Harry Weidner: 16:04

Jack did have that correct. Epistemology, okay, back to the episode. But

Jack Weidner: 16:11

essentially, and I said, these are just basic philosophical questions that I think computer science people, and you know, engineer, whoever's working on these massive machine learning complexes are thinking about, and I was like, Oh, these are just humanitarian caught, like humanities concepts that they're putting into science. And now engineers are like, Oh, wait, what? Like, do we know anything? And I want to go to a video on the dangers of AI. And they were talking about bias in data sets, and how it is important, when AI gives you information to read it critically. And a lot of the people were like, you might get something and think that it's right, because it came from a machine, which is a bad practice on any ground. But I think when you we're especially working with things that are, let's say, let's say they're like I think we look at a binary system is pretty objective. Like I think we view not machines, but things with a code, we look at them as object, right? I think that that is a bias and humanity. But they were saying you have to read and scrutinize and that if the data that it is fed is biased, the output that the machine learning, I don't know machine learning system will provide the algorithm will be biased. And I called Harry and I said, that's interesting to me that that would not be assumed from the get go. Because in the humanities, I think when we in our intro classes, we are taught to question what we read. If we are given a paper written by someone, we ask, what is their position? What is their connection to this topic? What is their expertise? How like, what are their biases that might influence what they're writing? And then how do we read that critically by questioning or you know, you get like, famous case you're reading JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Is Holden Caulfield, an unreliable narrator How do you know that you read and you're questioning? Hold it has bias because to live in the world is to have bias. And I called Harry and I said, do scientists don't think about this? Is that not something that you were just taught to read everything with the possibility of bias? And Harry said no. And I think we can kind of continue let's, let's start a

Harry Weidner: 18:55

discussion here. And all will start here. Because I said no, immediately, because I was thinking of my like, introductory. And you said you just you discuss this in your intro courses.

Jack Weidner: 19:08

You have to so to read anything you have to

Harry Weidner: 19:12

in, in biochemistry, and I think a lot of like intro hard sciences, you don't think about bias at all. The point of those classes is to learn the information. I have to learn these proteins, I have to learn what they do and the signaling pathway. And we're really not taught to question it until you reach a level of understanding beyond that intro level. So it wasn't until I joined labs and we were actually forming questions question formation and research design and how to answer the question best that we really started to think about bias but On day one, no, you don't think about bias. Remember how you think back to high school biology? You just learn these things that are given to you as fact. And you don't really have the space, the wiggle room to question them. Because I

Jack Weidner: 20:17

asked, I asked him, like one of my fundamental questions. I'm like, What is something? What is living? Like? Why I don't I still I asked this and I asked your biology class that I had.

Harry Weidner: 20:29

You are a Why is a

Jack Weidner: 20:30

cell living? If it if the components within it, you know, like, Okay, I'm gonna be able to pitch it. We're not gonna go on a huge, we don't have to. Yeah, I could ask you this. I've asked you this before. It drives me nuts. Yeah. Okay. I do. I do, though, I guess

Harry Weidner: 20:48

you do you Sure. But I think for most students, point blank, you don't question the facts that you're given when you're given a PowerPoint? Because you just think that it's all well understood. The real world says it's not. And then when I came to grad school, and I did my epidemiology studies, that's all about bias, but it's a different kind of bias than what you were talking about.

Jack Weidner: 21:18

Okay. So I would like to start, I think, trying to think like, what makes the most sense from a narrative perspective? Let's start with this. That what point you didn't think about bias, or in questioning those facts that you were given? And you said, until you came to grad school?

Harry Weidner: 21:37

Until I joined labs? Okay. And I don't think all students have that experience. Okay. So tell me, I think my experience with Andrew really was formative in my ability to critically think about information that's presented.

Jack Weidner: 21:54

So tell me about like kind of your first experiences with questioning some of those things, some of that some facts with Andrew or how he kind of shifted your mindset when you were given some information to ingest? Or how utterly Andrew change your perspective,

Harry Weidner: 22:09

he really just said, Don't believe anything anyone tells you. And, and so ever since I heard that from him, I always think about every fact that's presented, and if I leave a class, now, it's weird that I'm graduated. But if I leave a class, and I don't have questions, I didn't pay attention well enough. And I didn't think enough about the information. Because if you don't have questions, then you're not thinking about it. That's kind of what Andrew set me up to do. So any paper that I would read, how did they do this? Why did they do this? And that set me up to understand bias from a scientific perspective. Okay,

Jack Weidner: 22:51

so can you explain to me bias from a scientific perspective? Or what is your

Harry Weidner: 22:56

understanding about in epidemiology specifically? Sure, yeah. So

Jack Weidner: 23:00

you got to college, and you learn about bias and and epidemiology? Yeah.

Harry Weidner: 23:03

So I think most epidemiology textbooks would define bias as a systematic error in the design, or analysis of a study that results in incorrect conclusions about associations, or measures of association like odds ratio, hazard ratio, risk ratio, and sort of outcomes. So that would be selection bias, information bias, confounding recall bias. And so those biases, impact the validity of the result that you're given, or the result that you find from these studies. It's systematic error in design. And now, let's go ahead,

Jack Weidner: 23:54

go go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Harry Weidner: 23:55

No, no, you go,

Jack Weidner: 23:56

I was gonna ask them, like for because I'm not a scientist, when you say systematic error in design, what does an error what is an example of an error in design?

Harry Weidner: 24:07

Um, so it's flaws in the study design. I know, I just repeated what you said. But I'll give you a selection bias. It's when participants are included in the study that aren't representative of the target population. And in order to mitigate or reduce selection bias, you need to clearly define the target population.

Jack Weidner: 24:32

Right. And so now now we're at where we kind of left off a call when we were talking about this the other week. Yeah.

Harry Weidner: 24:39

So it's all about properly identifying and defining the research question so that you can deliberately minimize the bias to answer that specific question. Okay, it's about understood Finding what you want, and designing your study to answer that. Okay, now, I want to hear about your

Jack Weidner: 25:07

well, so I'm gonna like go back because basically, I mean, if you are, if you aren't hip, this idea for bias, there's a lot of examples of AI being, quote unquote biased, because of the information. And it is fed in a very, like, mocking the same mundane, but in our low stakes, but and just kind of like a less controversial example, basically, like, because humanity has said, so many things, and comments and jokes and false studies and statistics about women being bad drivers, if you ask AI, you give it four names, one for three or clearly masculine, one is more feminine in nature, it might pick the female name as being worse at drive, because of how we are as people in the world being terrible, right. And they were saying that means your data is biased. And that's not good. And you have to think about that beforehand. And I just thought that was weird, because I would, I would like i To me, this was engineers being like, oh, my gosh, not everything we have not engineers. But you know what I mean? Like the scientific community being like, oh, not everything we have is, you know, good information, obviously, right? Like you're getting into you feed AI histories. And in history class, a big thing is understanding that history is written by the winners. So everything you read has to be read through that mindset. You have to find different sources, you have to work really hard to get an accurate, like, the study of history is not an objective study. And I think like kind of where I've landed, is that nothing because of human like humans by nothing is an objective study. Right? So I just did and why I called you is I'm looking the humanities are under attack right now. In the world of like, why are they important to study. And I think, that mindset, that they that they teach you to critically think, which is an overused term, but I think it really is true. Just the they teach you to critically analyze the information which with which were given, and I think the sciences now that we have created something that is hyper logical, meaning that it takes everything it reads as a fact, and then makes its own judgement, like you can go through a logical process and say, like, and arrive at a conclusion. That is sounded logic, but false. That is like a Phyllis, that is a philosophically sound thing that can happen, right? You can be logically sound and false. And I think we've created something that's better at doing that than we are sometimes it's right, sometimes it's wrong. That is

Harry Weidner: 28:20

a big problem. Right?

Jack Weidner: 28:24

And I think studying the humanities will become very important. And you have people who are asking, wait a second, not all of this information out here is correct. How do we know what's correct? And I think we're asking like, what are humans? What are humans good at? In this question? What? How do we know what we know? And we're just back to these philosophical principles, these philosophical questions. So to me reading this, taking this very academic course by all of these brilliant, you know, you've computer scientists, you have engineers, CEOs, whatever, they're teaching you this information. They're just saying basic human concepts that I learned in my humanities classes back to me. So to me, like bias, Harry said, I get to ask him, I said, What kind of like, are you talking about? What kind of bias is where you are? What kind of bias because I knew he was gonna say this. Epidemiology has a certain type of bias. And science has a certain type of bias and I, I agree that it's phrased differently, and he's like, What is your definition of bias? I said, I don't know the Merriam Webster definition, an inclination of temperament or Outlook, an incidence of such prejudice, deviation of the expected value of statistical estimate from the quantity it estimates. Those are three definitions, the top three of bias, but actually, it's just the top one because they're all law. lumped together into a singular definition, where they're all basically saying the same thing. So an instance of prejudice is thrown into the same group definition of deviation of the expected value of a statistical estimate from the quantity, it estimates and systematic error introduced into sampling or testing. Those are all within prejudice. Because and that kind of, I didn't know that until just now. But that really speaks to my argument, that no matter how specific, you would like to say epidemiology, his definition of biases, it is still just my definition of bias.

Harry Weidner: 30:52

But I think the mitigation of these biases is different, because the goal is different. And you'll tell me the goal is not what is the what is the goal? What's the goal? The goal of like, identifying epidemiology biases? Sure. It's to answer the question, or understand if the question that you're asking is appropriately answered. But

Jack Weidner: 31:21

that's not the goal. Because what's the goal? The question? What's the goal of any question and epidemiology study? And what is the goal of epidemiology?

Harry Weidner: 31:42

To understand environmental factors or other factors that cause disease, and

Jack Weidner: 31:46

why do we want to do that?

Harry Weidner: 31:49

Public Health?

Jack Weidner: 31:50

Why is public health poor? I'm going to make you say,

Harry Weidner: 31:54

I don't know what you want me to say here, but I mean, the health of populations. Okay.

Jack Weidner: 31:59

So we want you are studying epidemiology in order to get the best information to care for the most people in the most effective way?

Harry Weidner: 32:09

Yes, okay. So what is the goal? Yes.

Jack Weidner: 32:14

What is the goal of a scientific epidemiologist

Harry Weidner: 32:19

to benefit humanity?

Jack Weidner: 32:21

Okay. So let's talk about bias, okay. Your definition of bias would not cover the example and I know it, you can change your mind. But you told me it wouldn't cover my example. When I gave you this a week ago. No, I said, Yeah. Target. The you said a specific audience, or what was your specific wording of like, it didn't like your set group? It didn't like focus right on your set group.

Harry Weidner: 32:50

Like the study by variation?

Jack Weidner: 32:51

Yeah, the study population? Was that it?

Harry Weidner: 32:54

I don't remember exactly what I said.

Jack Weidner: 32:57

You said something, because I was I kept giving you examples. I was like, okay. So historically, science has excluded research on white men or excluded research on white women, women of all races, people of color, just across the board, right? Those are very, very rapid, different, different race, different races, different genders. They pretty least do a lot of research on white men. Yeah. And I said it's white men. Yeah. Except if they admit that their target audience is just white men. They're not their target audience, but they're, like, split like, we're just, we're testing this drug only on white men. Yes, that technically, isn't bias. No. But it is bias. Because what, like, if their reasoning that they are doing that is deemed is because is rooted in some sort of racism, some sort of sexism that would only make them care about white men. That is bias in the setup of the study. I won't disagree with that. But I think it is so important for the scientists to start admitting what the purpose, what the actual purpose of the study is, and really starting to call and I know that they that I provided a an egregious example where it is so black and white cut and dry clear, but that is bias. But to scrutinize studies, with that kind of idea. Yeah. And

Harry Weidner: 34:39

but I think I think this goes back to our very first episode of the podcast, where we talked about how the entire educational system needs reform. Sure, sure. source or source or source or source resource resource, for sure. I mean, yes, I do. I think I would have much benefited, very greatly benefited But I was gonna get to a bias education.

Jack Weidner: 35:03

As you start, like, young Truda, I wanted that this is actually gonna get to. Okay. Yeah, sure. I mean, you got it in high school. You read Catcher in the Rye, you talked about unreliable narrators,

Harry Weidner: 35:16

I guess. But we got to know, you what you

Jack Weidner: 35:19

weren't taught is to bring that mindset into every single class. Yes. That is the benefit of the humanities that I think people are missing. It's that it's a mindset. Right.

Harry Weidner: 35:34

And I, I love it.

Jack Weidner: 35:37

Do you do I realize I've tried to, I just, it's so interesting to me, you know, like you and I talk about learning in a vacuum and how you just can't do it. And I just think bias the good note in this in the age of AI, I think the study of the humanities is so important, because it is teaching you a way of interacting with the world.

Harry Weidner: 35:57

Yeah, I think we'll see a rise in AI use classes at an undergraduate institutions. If there's

Jack Weidner: 36:08

what I don't want, is it to be aI use classes, not that no one gives a shit what I want like this, the train has left the station, I just don't think it's as beneficial to have it be aI use. Because AI is a form of as a way of interacting with the world. There will be other ways of interacting with the world. Other than AI, what have we had before AI that change the way we interact with the world? A million things, right? Like industrial revolution, agriculture, the agricultural revolution, industrial revolutions. We've found, right now we're talking about social media. So if you teach AI use classes short, you'll learn Yeah, you're gonna learn about bots, you're gonna learn that, you know, beat question AI. Great. But what about the next thing? If we focus so heavily on AI? Have we failed to prepare? For what is the what is in the future? And I think time and time again, my argument is that you create, like, what if this is the start of the podcast, this is the same conversation that we just had about

Harry Weidner: 37:23

this is learning it in English class and applying it broadly.

Jack Weidner: 37:28

Right, but exactly, I'm building Yeah, learning an English class of buying a broadly. But this is also how important an educated citizen is to, like educated populace is to a liberal democracy, right? How important education is to a society. And then, what it means to me is redefining what an education is. I'm not saying you didn't have this, I'm sorry, I don't want to know, go ahead. People who are in the sciences get an education in any sense, they get an education, an incredible education, from, you know, their for whatever, they got a four year degree, whether they went on to graduate school. I just think their way of interacting with the world could be could benefit from a humanities approach to ingesting knowledge. In the same way. I think all of the people in the humanities could deal with being challenged it seeing how the sciences interact with information, there is an importance to prove you what you are saying, yeah. And that kind of logical. Flow is pivotal to the humanities, we do not get together in a circle, sing Kumbaya, and talk about our feelings. Sometimes we do. I was gonna say, maybe you did. Sometimes we did. But that's good. Talk about your feelings. Sorry. Yeah. So I just I'm so passionate. No, I

Harry Weidner: 39:12

appreciate it. I think. I think you're right. So much of my degree was focused on understanding epidemiological bias. And there was way less of an I mean, I wrote papers on bias. And I wrote papers on understanding papers on bias. And but it was it was very specific, like, systematic study design, error that influences measures of association, either up or down toward or away from the null. And that's what it was. But do I think it could have been more focused on the broader discussion of bias that we just had? Yeah, and I think that would benefit science. And what's coming out of epidemiology specifically, tremendously? Do you think there's a benefit to bias?

Jack Weidner: 40:12

I'm gonna say yes. Because I feel like I have to. Because I feel like to exist as human beings, we must exist with bias, right? And to exist with bias and to exist authentically. And to admit that that bias is there allows us to see different perspectives from our. So I think, in the same way, men, this really does go back to what like how I said, me reading Brooklyn has introduced me to another perspective that I have not gotten to introduce or to interact with that her bias is the characters bias. And the writers bias that him being an a Thai, or an Irish immigrant himself, that his bias has shown me a new perspective. I don't, I think where we fall, and where I think, why I'm so interested in AI, is when we assume that there is not biased. And we present things with objectivity that don't have that. But I think bias is just the way that we live and to say, is there a benefit to bias? To me that's like saying, Is there a benefit to having multiple perspectives in anything? Yeah, absolutely. What about you? Do you think that there's benefit to bias? Yeah,

Harry Weidner: 41:38

I mean, I think, to give a little less elegant, elegant of an answer. Humans are pattern recognition machines. And this is a grape, most of our lives, whether we want to admit it or not, are spent trying to find patterns and things to reduce cognitive load. And so evolutionarily, bias is tremendously beneficial. Eating, you know, cavemen eating something, this thing is good, it gives me fuel. I will do that again. What does the shake, you know, it's, it's

Jack Weidner: 42:19

just you're such a good point. It's like to have bias against something that looked like a bear. If it's not a bear, you're still safer that it would be that it would be if you went to investigate it. Like, that's a good point.

Harry Weidner: 42:35

And so I think that's, that's why bias is such a big problem. Because it's so evolutionarily rooted in our success as a species.

Jack Weidner: 42:47

And I think like, what's so much fun, is that you and I can sit here and have this conversation, acknowledge bias, acknowledge its benefits, and still have that curiosity to dive further. Because I think curiosity and an openness is really the cure to bias it sir. It serves that evolutionary purpose. It Sir, it is just to to be biased is to be human. And then how do you remedy that? You must push yourself for you must be curious to scrutinize and to question. Education,

Harry Weidner: 43:29

education,

Jack Weidner: 43:30

everything falls to education. That's this whole podcast. Yeah. Awesome, dude. Oh, my gosh, is there anything else we should say about bias? I don't think so. This is I had fun. This was a good this is what I'm sorry. I talked so much. I'm just really passionate about this. I'm so curious about it. I'm so curious about the future of humanity. It's like I'm excited. And I want to see what's going on. And like that's, you know, like this awesome. Party on man, Dad party. All right. I'm gonna wrap it up. Thank you so much for listening. If you have any thoughts on bias, if you have any biases, don't email us the biases, but email us your thoughts on bias. Or you can text us Oh, go ahead. Well, you're gonna

Harry Weidner: 44:15

say I was gonna say we'll link to the books that we talked about. Yeah. Earlier in the description. If you buy me support the show, that would be awesome. Yes. That's huge. And, yeah, reach out. We love the feedback and we love interacting with people. So

Jack Weidner: 44:32

thanks. Thank you so much for seeing how this mess unravels and we'll see you in two weeks with a special guest

Harry Weidner: 44:40

right on this morning.